Ella Pamfilova
|
As I entered Ella Alexandrovna's study, I
did not realize at once that the young woman with luxurious blond hair,
working at a distant desk, is not a secretary-reviewer, but Mrs. Pamfilova
herself. The difference between the TV image (and the photographs) of the
ex-Minister of Social Security and the woman before my eyes was so striking
that for the first few minutes of our talk I was haunted by a suspicion
that she still may turn out to be a substitute. This charming woman, with
her slightly bashful manners and a soft quiet voice, and the main thing
- with her live, open, compassionate heart - was a graphical opposite to
the hard milieu of the State Duma and to the standard image of its "residents".
Our talk with Ella Alexandrovna Panfilova started with a description of
her activity in the post of a State Duma Deputy. |
Q.: In what matters is your present work
in the State Duma involved today?
E.P.: I deal with the social
security issues in the Security Committee. The social security, predetermining
the standard of the person's life in society, is a complex concept, comprising
an aggregate of the civil rights and freedoms, as well as a number of the
aspects, connected with the education, the health, the ecology, etc. I
am firmly convinced that one should take a preventive and prophylactic
approach to the issues, involved in the social security. This approach
should amount to putting the problem at hand under a thorough analysis,
making a correct diagnosis of the situation, compiling a forecast for its
further development, and then elaborating the ways to prevent negative
trends. It would seem evident that the prophylaxis of a social malady is
much more effective and cheap than the treatment of its neglected forms,
but far from all the Deputies can get convinced of this. In particular,
I have overcome a stubborn resistance in making this approach the foundation
for the draft laws on preventing violence in the family, on the prophylaxis
of the delinquency and of the child neglect, and for a number of other
laws, in whose elaboration I have participated.
The preventive approach is, in general, preferable in resolving any
social problem. For example, the growth in the number of invalid children
is a real scorge. Can we put up a struggle against this? Of course we can.
Having analyzed the chief causes of the child invalidity, the circumstances
and the age factor, we can formulate prophylactic programmes, which would
drastically reduce the mad tempo of the growth of invalidity among the
growing generation. To cut down on the number of the birth invalids would
be possible by paying more attention to the health of the future mothers,
by conducting an enlightenment work among them and by investing sufficient
funds into the obstetric aid, an awful plight of which today accounts for
serious birth injuries. The peak of the child traumatism and mortality,
falling on the juvenile age, which is caused by the neglect of the teenagers,
could have also been substantially reduced by making investments into the
sports and the health-building institutions and into some arrangements
for the children and the teenagers in their free time. This could at the
same time reduce the indices of the juvenile crime, for these problems
are interconnected. Here the question arises: would it not be easier to
support today the extra-school education, the free-time centres and the
summer camps, than to build tomorrow new and new colonies for the juvenile
delinquents? All the time we are trying to economize on the most important
things, and then we have to put enourmous means into the liquidation of
the aftermath of our own shortsightedness.
Q.: Are you satisfied with your work in
the State Duma?
E.P.: To my regret, there
are neither clear-cut priorities nor a definite strategy in our legislative
representative power. You have probably heard the current phrase, "a
systemic crisis", which in fact stands for an utter chaos on the level
of the executive and the legislative power, typical of this country up
to this day. I cannot recall any attempts at overcoming the systems crisis,
relying on a systems approach. The steps, taken by the Government, are
inconsistent: now it is The Seven Days and then, The Twelve days programme;
now one decision and in no time - a different one is made. The same chaos
prevails in the Duma: the place of priority in consideration is given to
a draft law of that Committee, which has the strongest lobby. And the result
is a complete absence of any system in the work.
I think that, to achieve good results, a programme of action must be
formulated: first, the problems must be studied and the priorities identified,
and then the goals must be set and the strategy and the tactics formulated.
The executive power must adjust the budget to this programme of action,
and the legislative power must elaborate a plan of legislative initiatives.
But as it is, we do not even have a centre for strategical studies!
I was a member of the first Cabinet of Ministers in 1991, when we had
just started the reforms. The country was in a grave plight, and we had
to find a way out in the shortest time possible. Seven years have passed
since, and now we have accumulated considerable experience, on the basis
of which the strategy for a further development could be elaborated. But
all we are anxious about is the financial stabilization, which is seen
as a remedy against all problems. This is an extremely one-sided approach.
Let us go back to the question of my work in the Duma. Well, being
a legislator, I am not satisfied with it. When you are aware of the urgent
problems and of how they can be resolved, but are drowned in the collective
irresponsibility of a vast majority of the Deputies, you are engulfed with
an acute sense of ... inefficiency. We must not approve three or four hundred
of laws during a single quarter. Let it be ten over the whole year. The
main thing is for every one citizen in the country to understand that these
laws are passed in his interest and that he would gain by living under
them.
Q.: Have you changed under the impact of
a few recent years?
E.P.: I believe I must have
become harder inside, but I don't think I have grown stale at the heart.
Q.: You are the only one among the Ministers,
both ex and in office today, about whom people (from the ordinary pensioners
to the presidents of big banks) speak warmly and approvingly. How often
do you call to mind your former job?
E.P.: I have never had a
chance to forget about it! All the time, I receive heaps of letters and
petitions, addressed to Mrs. Panfilova, Minister of Social Security. The
experience, which I have accumulated in my former post, is the base for
my present work, aimed at launching and at expanding the movement, For
a Healthy Russia. I think that the social development strategy must not
come down to a redistribution of the budgetary means among the needy citizen
categories; it must provide an impetus for building up the systems of self-sufficiency
and self-regulation.
Q.: It follows from your words that the
social development strategy should be oriented at creating favourable conditions
for the manifestation of the public initiative, because this is a real
factor, which can help resolve the social problems.
E.P.: You've said it! It
is highly important to push the people into an independent action, to make
them help themselves and the others, to believe in their own powers and
not just sit about, waiting for changes from the outside. Now I see my
task in rendering support to the sprouts of such initiative. When I held
the ministerial post, I made contacts with a great many interesting people
and organizations. These links have not been disrupted with time, but have
even grown stronger; it is on their base that the movement, For a Healthy
Russia, has emerged. This is a live, realistic cause and it gives me much
more satisfaction than my work in the Duma. Our movement embraces natural
and legal persons, scientists, cultural workers, over 40 creative collectives
of children and of young people from the vastly different regions of the
country, various kind of enterprises, rehabilitation centres and medical
insurance companies...
Q.: And what about the banks?
E.P.: We have not set ourselves
the goal to establish still another charity foundation, looking for money
in support of some good idea and then redistributing it for the charity
purposes - this niche is already occupied.
Q.: Well, and what is the purpose of your
movement?
E.P.: To put it in the most
general way, the movement, For a Healthy Russia, is aimed at joining the
public forces, capable of exerting an impact on the formulation of a reasonable,
adequate social policy. We try to assist people in achieving a high standard
of the physical, psychic, spiritual and moral health. But first of all,
we must stop the quick degradation of man and to rehabilitate him, and
only then to involve him into development.
This goal explains the strategy we have selected. From the entire circle
of problems, we have chosen a few directions, which are, in our opinion,
of vast importance today, and which are in our power. They are: Culture,
Childhood, Informational Support for the Social Sphere, Social Pharmacy,
Medico-Social Rehabilitation, Ecological Rehabilitation, Psychological
and Medico-Psychological Rehabilitation.
On each of these directions we have prepared several complex programmes;
all of them, if I can put it this way, are mutually penetrating. For instance,
the programme, worked out on the problem of Childhood, in many respects
intersects with the other durections, such as Culture, Education and the
Health Care. The same is true of the programmes for the youth, like, for
example, a goal-oriented programme for preventing narcomania and alcoholism.
It is widely known that many people and organizations are now launching
attempts at resolving these acute problems.
But before tackling them, we have tried to find the answers to the
following questions: what changes can we achieve? what is our niche? what
assistance can we rende in addition to what the state is already doing?
As we looked after the answers, we have arrived at the conclusion that
the main thing today is to bring into a single whole the isolated measures,
projects and programmes, which are successfully working in the given field.
So our programme consists of two stages. At the first stage, we identify
the most successful elements; and at the second, we tie them in into an
integral system.
Q.: But if you are going to bring up the
social technology for resolving problems, which you achieve as a result,
to the broad public circles, you shall need considerable means. My question
about the banks has implied that not only researchers and public activists
must be drawn into the movement, but representatives of the commercial
sector as well.
E.P.: You are quite right.
A large-scale campaign at the second stage of our programme will require
joint efforts on the part of the public, the business and the state. We
should show to the Government, that our activity is complementary to the
work of the government institutions, engaged in resolving the problems
of alcoholism and narcomania. And we shall turn for assistance to the financiers,
too. I know perfectly well that many representatives of the business circles
suffer from the fact that their own children become drug-addicts.
Q.: Otherwise speaking, you are going to
start a large-scale informational campaign to change the people's behaviour?
E.P.: I would rather say,
to change the way of life. But for a start, we must first realize the need
to change the way of thinking and the way of life, to understand that otherwise
we just cannot revive. In this connection, it would be uselful to draw
on the experience of the developed Western countries. The National Security
Programme of the United States gives a no less priority to the care about
a healthy way fo life than to the provisions for the inviolability of the
state frontiers, to the preservation of the natural resources and to the
maintenance of the genofond standard. In this country, on the contrary,
neither the way of life, nor the psycho-emotional state of man is paid
due attention, even despite the fact that the notorious economic welfare
is closely involved in these factors. I have never liked the term "the
human factor", but now it is of a decisive significance. A certain
kind of social optimism, which immediately tells on the development of
the economy, may sprout only if man believes in his own powers, if he realizes
that he is the most valuable asset for both the society and the state.
I have been studying in detail for some time now the state of affairs
in our army, and I should like to emphasize that there is a great difference
between the atmosphere in the frontier troops and in all the others. On
the whole, the army is struck with what may be called an epidemic of stresses.
This epidemic has developed not only because the payment of the salaries
is delayed, but (and for the most part) because of the prevailing attitude
towards the military men today, which was aptly put into words by the Soldiers'
Mothers: "The soldier has always been seen here as so much trash,
and nothing has changed by now!"
The chief distinction of the frontier troops is not that they are better
financed, but in the attitude towards the soldier. This circumstance is
largely the merit of Director of the Federal Frontier Service Nikolayev,
who has made it a rule that man, the frontier guard, is the most important
asset on the state border. There is no economizing on the serviceman on
the state border! The limited means, allocated to the frontier troops,
first of all go to pay out the salaries and to provide for the foodstuffs,
and only then - to acquire the hardware, etc. The friendliness is spread
from the general to the officer, and from the officer - to the soldier.
As a result, the attitute to the service itself changes, and to the hardware
as well; the frontier troops spend considerably less money on maintaining
it than the other kinds of the troops, where the priorities are shifted
and the central place is given not to man, but, let us say, to the technical
equipment. No matter how huge the means are allocated to buy the armaments,
the situation in the army will not improve. Some of the armaments will
be sold out by the generals and some will be just put out of order by the
unbalanced officers; and what is left, will be used by the desperate soldier
to shoot at his own comrades and at himself. And the reasons lie here,
in man! If a normally operating system of psychological rehabilitation
is set going in the army, I think that the massive epidemics of suicides,
murders and tragedies will abate.
However, for some reason, we would rather explain everything by the
material factors alone, which are in the actual fact only secondary. And
we are passing by what has long been proved in all the developed countries:
that the most profitable business is to invest in man, for it is these
investments that bring in the biggest returns.
Q.: The theme of the 2000 presidential election
is already in the focus of the mass media today. I think our readers will
be disappointed if we do not touch upon it. Are you going to join in the
game, called Election-2000?
E.P.: I would not like to
take any part in the "games", if you put it this way. The principle
is always the same: either you go from the Party in Power (though this
is a rather vague term, because this party is all the time rent by furious
squabbles), or you must come out as a firm opponent. In the former case,
you are an official candidate, for whom the entire oligarchic machine will
be working. I have never rendered the kind of services to the Party in
Power, which would entitle me to become an official candidate. The systems
opposition is also a part of the game of the Party in Power, and the most
serious opponent is not a secret (I don't have in mind the radical left-wing
opposition, which has no chance at all). All the figures have been put
into their places in this game, all the niches have been occupied, while
the traditional set of the persons is widely known. You must be very strong,
indeed, to venture entering this struggle and, honestly speaking, I have
never given a serious thought to this.
I have set myself a different goal today - to cultivate the movement.
For me, it is as well as alive. I think it must say its own word, and then
- the future will show. For some reason I believe that by the year 2000,
the scheme, on which our oligarchy counts, will fail. Today, the representatives
of the oligarchy have divided among themselves the finance and the mass
media; they are about to finalize the division of the resources and are
convinced that the outcome of the election is preordained: all they have
to do is to find a suitable candidate, and the zombied crowd will unanimously
vote as they are ordered. But I think this is a delusion on their part.
Q.: You are right, it is not interesting
to talk about these games. And still, haven't you ever been visited by
an idea to conscientiously assume upon yourself the burden of power?
E.P.: I am sure that the
power for the sake of power is just a calamity. We have many examples of
the people, who have been desperately fighting for power, but now they
do not know what to do with it. They are just going to pieces, because
they have no integrity and are in fact not ready to possess the power.
The claims, made on the person at the very top of power, are very high,
many things are demanded from him, and the main thing is to be able to
create a good team. He should not be afraid to surround himself with clever
people, with the high-grade professionals, who are better, than himself,
versed in this or that field. He should surround himself with this kind
of people, and not with the poor souls, deprived of any talent. He should
be a strategist and should know how to direct the work of his team into
a single channel...
It would be irresponsible and not very clever of me to make some noisy
declarations. There is quite enough figures among our politicians, who
are striving to sit on the presidential chair. Today they are coming out
in support of one kind of ideas, and tomorrow - of the other kind. This
proves their lack of principle and of deep convictions. They are possessed
with only one passionate desire - to become the President! I would not
like to be counted among such persons. And I have no ambitions like theirs.
I only have a profound sense of responsibility, a lot of strength and the
wish to change our life for the better.
Ella Pamfilova interviewed
by Julia Kachalova
